Unemployment in Germany fell to its lowest level in more than 20 years in September as the labour market shrugged off fears of a pending economic slowdown, official data showed Thursday. The German jobless rate, which measures the proportion of people registered as unemployed against the working population as a whole, fell to 6.6 percent in September from 7.0 percent, according to raw or unadjusted figures published by the Federal Labour Agency in Nuremberg.
That was the lowest level since German unification and a much steeper fall than analysts had been expecting. In concrete terms, the total number of people out of work was down by 149,000 from August to September, and down by 231,000 year-on-year to stand at 2.79 million, the agency said in a statement. It is the first time since 1992 that the jobless total has been below 2.8 million.
Unemployment tends to fall in September as a result of seasonal factors, such as the end of the summer holidays. To iron out such fluctuations, the Bundesbank calculates seasonally adjusted data, and these showed the jobless total down by 26,000 over the month and the adjusted jobless rate slipping to 6.9 percent from 7.0 percent. In Berlin, Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said the better-than-expected data "suggest that the economy will continue to fare well in the third quarter as well."
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